During the eight decades in the evolution of the modern Mexican nation, shifting relations of power have constantly met with voices of opposition that challenge the national vision of progress and unity. Textured Lives explores some of these cracks in the Mexican national edifice through the cultural practices of women in literature and the arts, focusing on individuals who represent crucial phases in Mexico's cultural history: Frida Kahlo and postrevolutionary nationalism, Rosario Castellanos and the promises of institutionalized revolution, Elena Poniatowska and the legacy of 1968, and Angeles Mastretta and the "golden age" of the oil boom. CONTENTS 1. Frida Kahlo's Cult of the Body: Self-Portrait, Magical Realism, and the Cosmic Race 2. Rosario Castellanos and the Confessions of Literary Journalism 3. Updating the Epistolary Canon: Bodies and Letters, Bodies of Letters in Elena Poniatowska's Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela and Gaby Brimmer 4. Popular Music as the Nexus of History, Memory, and Desire in Angeles Mastretta's Arr#65533;ncame la vida